Review: Don’t Bite the Bridesmaid by Tiffany Allee

Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: Sons of Kane #1
Length: 209 pages
Publisher: Entangled: Covet
Date Released: May 27, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Alice Shepard needs one thing: a date for her sister’s wedding. And not just any date. A hunk who will make her fiancé rue the day he left her for her best friend. Her drop-dead gorgeous neighbor fits the bill—even if he is a bit quirky and never comes out during the day—and Alice has downed just enough appletinis to ask him. But she makes it quite clear that there will be no funny business.

Spending a week on a cruise ship full of humans while sleeping close to his sexy next-door neighbor sounds like a helluva bad idea to vampire Noah Thorpe. But his friends need time to get him out of a shotgun wedding—a vampire bonding that will tie his fate to a female vampire he’s never met. And Alice’s offer comes at just the right time.

What could possibly go wrong?

My Review:

Don’t Bite the Bridesmaid was a lot of fun to read, and it also had a couple of surprisingly deep points along with the cute love story (and I’m not just talking about the hero’s fangs, either!)

Of course Alice wants a date to her sister’s wedding. And not just because she doesn’t want to spend a week on a wedding cruise as a pitiful single (yuck!). The groom’s brother is her lying, cheating, scum-sucking ex-fiancé. Pride requires that she rub his face in how much better off she is without him.

Especially since they broke up because she caught him with his pants down, screwing her ex-best friend.

Now that their relationship is dead and gone, Alice is certain she’s better off without him (he had other bad habits) but that doesn’t mean she wants to be alone on that wedding cruise. Six appletinis later, she’s next door asking her hunky neighbor to be her “plus one” for a week on a boat.

Lucky for her Noah Thorpe needs an excuse to get out of town and out of touch. The Vampire Council (yes, you read that right) wants him to bond with some newly fledged vampire to keep whoever-she-is grounded until she learns control and supposedly to keep him from dying of ennui.

But Noah’s nowhere near that jaded yet, unlike his brother Alex, and he needs to disappear for a week so that his other brother Charles can lobby the Council, or their father Kane.

Besides, he likes Alice. Or rather, when she comes back the next morning, chastened and sober, to present her proposition a second time, Charles thinks its a great idea and Noah gets a visit from the green-eyed monster.

Noah thinks it will be easy to hide from the Council, and hide his secret vampiric identity, on a cruise ship with the most tempting woman he’s met in centuries.

He has absolutely no idea what he’s let himself in for. Or that it might be the best worst idea he’s ever had.

Escape Rating B: Don’t Bite the Bridesmaid was so much fun because it takes a bite out of so many tried-and-true romantic themes. Alice doesn’t want to go alone on that cruise, but she absolutely does not want her ex back, and with excellent reasons.

There are always convoluted vampire politics. I swear. That never changes. But the whole vampire bonding to keep both parties out of different kinds of trouble was a new twist. (We never do find out who the would-be bonded mate is. Her identity doesn’t seem to be important for the plot. Or this plot. After meeting Kane, I smell red herring)

Unlike the usual variations on this theme, Alice and some of her family already know about vampires. Her brother almost married one, but his vampire ex-fiancé left him at the altar. (I wish we had that story.)

I like Alice; she’s someone I’d want to meet. Based on Noah’s description of her neighborhood activism, she’s definitely someone I’d like to have in my town! Her family, especially her mom, are lots of fun.

Based on the ending I have hopes that there will be stories about Noah’s two brothers, Alex and Charles. Don’t Bite the Bridesmaid was such a delightful little treat, I’d be happy to read more about the Sons of Kane. I wouldn’t mind reading Kane’s story, either. His Mr. Mysterious thing at Cindy’s wedding was awesome.